Friday, March 30, 2012

Micromachined Propulsion systems for very small satellites

Our focus is on miniaturized electric propulsion to enable small spacecraft (1–100 kg) to be able to perform missions currently only possible for much larger and hence much more expensive spacecraft. Our goal is to provide efficient propulsion systems for nanosatellites, which are currently stuck in whatever orbit they were initially placed: we plan to free them to allow nanosatellites to perform orbital maneuvering, and missions to the Moon, to Near Earth Objects, or even to Mars.